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Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant specified the first meridian in his 1791 "Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of the United States . . .".[1][2] (Shortly after L'Enfant prepared this plan, its subject received the name "City of Washington".) His plan stated that the longitude of the Congress House, now called the Capitol, would be 0°0'. Longitude of the center of its dome (completed in 1863 during the Civil War) is now given by the National Geodetic Survey as 77°00'32.6"W (NAD 83).

L'Enfant planned Washington around a right triangle, having its 90° vertex at an equestrian statue of George Washington, its eastern vertex at the "Congress house" and its northern vertex at the "President's house", now named the "White House".[3] (This would place L'Enfant's statue 0.36 meters (1 ft 2 in) north of the latitude of the Capitol.)

The west side of L'Enfant's triangle forms a natural prime meridian passing through the President's house. The following nine features on and near this "Washington Meridian" are listed from south to north:

In 1793 Secretary of StateThomas Jefferson surveyed and marked with a wooden post the southwest vertex of L'Enfant's triangle, establishing the second Washington meridian, the one through the President's house. The wooden post was replaced by the Jefferson Pier in 1804, while Jefferson was President of the United States. After removal and replacement several times, it was permanently replaced in 1889 by a 2-foot-square (0.6 m), 2-foot-tall, granite pier, now 390 feet (119 m) WNW of the center of the Washington Monument.[5] NGS gives its longitude as 77°02'11.56258"W (NAD 83) as of 2002[update] (likely error less than a centimeter). Azimuth to the Capitol is 89.98 degrees, a discrepancy of just under a meter.

In 1890 the Meridian Stone was set at the center of the Ellipse, intended to be on the same meridian.[6] It is an 18-inch-square (46 cm) granite post set flush with the ground. NGS gives its longitude as 77°02'11.55880"W (NAD 83) as of 2002[update] (likely error less than a centimeter).

In 1923, the Zero Milestone was set on the north side of the Ellipse, intended to be on the same meridian and to be the zero mileage point for all United States roads (but never was).[7] It is a granite pillar about 18 inches (46 cm) square and about 3.5 feet (1.1 m) tall. NGS gives its longitude as 77°02'11.57375"W (NAD 83) as of 2002[update] (likely error less than two centimeters).

16th Street Northwest, which extends due north from the White House.[10] The meridian is sometimes identified as the "16th Street Meridian" because of the location of this street.

The following feature on this meridian no longer exists. It was a small freestone obelisk placed in 1804 on top of a hill 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north of the President's House, hence the name Meridian Hill. It was at the northern end of 16th Street, just north of Florida Avenue, before 16th Street was extended northward soon after 1900, covering it up. Now adjoining the east side of 16th Street where the obelisk once stood is Meridian Hill Park.

The third meridian was defined on September 28, 1850 by Congress: "[T]he meridian of the observatory at Washington shall be adopted and used as the American meridian for all astronomical purposes and ... the meridian of Greenwich shall be adopted for all nautical purposes."[13] The observatory decided that this meridian passed through the center of the original (small) dome atop the main building of the Old Naval Observatory, now abandoned southwest of the corner of E and 23rd Streets in Foggy Bottom (north of the Lincoln Memorial and west of the White House). The observatory adopted 77°2'48.0"W for its meridian in the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac for the years 1855 to 1869 (as 5h8m11.2s). In 1897, well after the observatory closed in 1892, the Coast and Geodetic Survey reported that its meridian was 77°3'2.3" west of Greenwich,[14] which was quoted for the next 50 years in the list of observatories in the Almanac (as 5h8m12.15s). When referred to later datums, this meridian has been variously specified as 77°3'6.119"W or 77°3'6.276"W (both presumably NAD 27). If NAD27, the latter would be 77°3'5.194"W (NAD 83) which seems to be within a few meters of the actual longitude, at worst. This meridian was repealed by Congress on August 22, 1912 to allow the Greenwich meridian to become the legal prime meridian of the United States.

Many western states have borders that are meridians of "longitude west of Washington", that is, west of the legal 1850 meridian through the Old Naval Observatory. However, their present boundaries follow the subsequently surveyed boundary, even when inaccurately marked a few miles (kilometers) east or west of the meridian in the statute. Other western states have meridians relative to Greenwich (Alaska, California, Oklahoma, Texas) or relative to a river or lake (Arkansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, Washington state).

The following meridians west of Washington are listed east to west, along with the appropriate boundary of the present state. The date of the meridian's definition is in parentheses (all in the 1860s). All states were territories of the same name when their meridians were specified except as noted. States without dates have boundaries dependent on the neighboring state with a date listed immediately above it.

The fourth meridian was through the clock room of the new Naval Observatory, 2.3 miles (3.8 km) northwest of the White House, at 77°3'56.7"W (1897) or 77°4'2.24"W (NAD 27) or 77°4'1.16"W (NAD 83). The clock room is a small building at the exact center of the 1000-foot (305 m) radius observatory grounds, whose northern entrance is at 34th Street and Massachusetts Avenue. It was used in the Almanac for the years 1898–1950 as the independent variable of time for a few tables (even though Washington's civil time since 1883 had been that of the standard time zone GMT−5 hours (75°W)).